Embers

Around the dinner table, on a longer car ride, before bedtime, at bedtime, with extended family, and scores of other times . . . create connection, understanding, awareness, character, laughter, history, a sense of family, and a host of other positive ends by being together with these topics, adventures, challenges, and experiences.

At Camp Augusta, these often happen before bedtime, but can occur at any time of the day. They get their name from the close of the day being like the embers of a fire. Although most of the below are discussion based, embers can also involve an adventure, star gazing, playing the “I Wonder” game, or whatever else the cabin designs.

Sources for Scores of “Embers” Ideas

StoryCorps is an independent nonprofit whose mission is to provide Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share, and preserve the stories of our lives. Since 2003, StoryCorps has collected and archived more than 30,000 interviews from more than 60,000 participants. AND, don’t miss their question generation tool!

Explore is a multimedia organization that documents leaders around the world who have devoted their lives to extraordinary causes. Both educational and inspirational, explore creates a portal into the soul of humanity by championing the selfless acts of others.

When you listen to their stories, they light a fire in your belly to go and Do your thing, your passion, the thing that sits in the back of your head each day, just waiting, and waiting for you to follow your heart.

This I Believe is based on a 1950s radio program of the same name, hosted by acclaimed journalist Edward R. Murrow. A not-for-profit organization that engages youth and adults from all walks of life in writing, sharing, and discussing brief essays about the core values that guide their daily lives. The audio essays have inspired numerous books, as well as audio books, and scores of radio broadcasts.

“Ideas worth spreading” We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So we’re building here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world’s most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other. Tons of lovely TED talks — play some TED roulette here 🙂 OneTwoThreeFourFiveSixSevenEight

The most important thing is that they celebrate the work of change-makers; demonstrating that small acts performed by individuals all around the world can ignite a “tipping point.” Each video KarmaTube offers three simple suggestions for viewers to support the spirit shown in the video.

We ask one question to all sorts of people: “What is most meaningful to you?” We feature one original answer every day. We connect with world leaders, moms, Nobel Peace Prize recipients, fishermen, teenagers, designers, prison inmates, media moguls … you?

A service by the Huffington Post. Once a week, a conversation is made available (plus the entire history of this service) for families to download and talk about. It includes the opening frame/information, followed by discussion questions, and also includes a recipe, if you’re so inclined. Scores of other sources, such as http://thoughtquestions.com or 25 Illustrated Thought Questions

If you could send a letter to your 16-year-old self, what would you write in it? Famous and not-so-famous adults engage in this intriguing idea. With your family, you can use this exercise by reading a few from the website/book, and then writing what you imagine your older self would write to you now.

Specific Ideas from Elsewhere

Cute title, article by CNN. Ends with advice on how not to have them with your children, and, in itself is an “embers” idea to bring up with your children. Similar, another article entitled: The Flight from Conversation (NYT)

Hans Rosling’s 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes. Hans Rosling’s famous lectures combine enormous quantities of public data with a sport’s commentator’s style to reveal the story of the world’s past, present and future development.

A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. Who was the violin player and what happened that was remarkable?

By framing the global population as 100 people, our media makes education more engaging and effective, and improves students’ abilities to remember and relate to what they learn. More narrowly, check out Who Americans are and what they do in Census data.

A TED talk: “Is there something you’ve always meant to do, wanted to do, but just … haven’t? Matt Cutts suggests: Try it for 30 days. This short, lighthearted talk offers a neat way to think about setting and achieving goals.”

Let’s think about . . .

Allows a group to get to know one another in ways that likely didn’t before. Especially useful if there are a couple people the group doesn’t know well, or there has been some significant time apart for some members.

Consider a framework of three zones — Comfort / Challenge / Panic. The group thinks of things that fit into each category, talk about them, and keep that awareness, perhaps with the addition of goals around them.